![]() You feel the intensity of emotion or see the outburst of emotion from another person, but the contributing emotions remain hidden under the surface. What you can’t see is that most of the iceberg is hidden beneath the water.Īnger is like this. George NewsĪ visual that has really helped me personally and professionally in my work with clients is the “anger iceberg.” When you see an iceberg, it appears to be sitting on top of the water. The question for me is this: Am I willing to learn? Stock image | Photo by fizkes/iStock/Getty Images Plus, St. I have come to learn that anger is like any other emotion it is my teacher. I don’t know about you, but I have felt a lot of confusion around this negative emotion at various times in my life. Therefore, seeing your anger as just a reaction to your true feelings and then intentionally interacting with those primary feelings instead, would allow you to reduce your distress more effectively, reduce the damage done by impulsive behaviors/choices, and help you communicate to those in your life more genuinely and successfully.FEATURE - You may have been taught that anger is bad – something to get rid of as quickly as possible or something to bury or control. While anger would have you lash out, become aggressive, or judge yourself or others harshly, these other feelings would be better served by very different looking responses in our lives. ![]() ![]() These other feelings are commonly listed as (but not limited to) fear, pain, stress, grief, anxiety, sadness, or disgust. If we imagine our emotions as an iceberg in that all the anger we are feeling is considered just the 10% that we can see out of the water, then to consider the other 90% of what you are feeling hidden beneath the surface can directly affect how we choose to behave and how well we are able to cope with our experiences. This can be common for many people which is what makes this iceberg metaphor so helpful to promote a more intentional and conscious approach to experiencing anger. I don’t know about you, but when I am feeling anger, it can easily feel like that is all there is and that there is no need to be mindful of any other feelings. ![]() It is in this way that we can apply this visualization to our anger. This interesting fact about a natural phenomenon is often used as a metaphor for highlighting the benefits of fully understanding something before believing that we have the entire picture. This literally means that as big as an iceberg may look from the deck of a ship, you will only be seeing a mere 10% of what is truly there. In the case of an iceberg, the commonly mentioned fact about them is that 90% of their mass is below the surface of the water. A secondary emotion refers to a feeling one has about another already existing feeling. This is means that it is rarely a primary emotion and is often then referred to as a secondary emotion. Though anger is a very strong feeling and one of the ways we may choose to express how we feel in many situations in our lives, it was during my start as a therapist that I was taught, and then reaffirmed through my experiences, that anger almost always comes second. This does lead to the idea that anger is one of the most common emotions that people do struggle with in ways that directly effects their lives. There are entire treatment modalities and services specifically dedicated to anger management that help educate and coach individuals in recognizing anger triggers and reducing the spikes in distress in the moment. Anger is one of the emotions most people would put in their list of fundamental feelings that they, and most others, would experience regularly.
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